The Fifth Annual Coint and Plick Poll for Best Video Games of 2011 - Part Three: 21 - 50

yeah, almost certainly overkill but I had a crate of games near ground zero (under the bed) and just bagged the whole thing up. the paranoid thoughts opening it back up would unleash are still too much for me to handle, I think.

Should I just play VI anyway knowing that I will probably never properly finish it?

yeah sure why not i play games im not going to finish all the time. i mean also in a game like this i care more about like completing the bestiary or finding all the mini medals or some obscure goal i set myself than beating the game

i'm off doing things irl for the rest of today and part of tomorrow. i'll post several more tomorrow evening. at the very latest, the whole countdown will be finally be finished by april 15th. i'll have a lot more spare time in the days leading up to the 15th because my gf will be out of town and i will be so sad and lonely. so if it's not already done by then, i should have plenty of time that weekend.

Whooooops, guess the previous three were tied for #49, and this one edges them out for #48 since it has 0.5 top game votes:

#48: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D – 3DS – 20 pts – 1 vote - 0.5 top game votesCraigG: Narrowly pipping my 2nd choice - though by position only as I'm giving them equal points - is this old chestnut. It may just be a remake, with 3D thrown in, but the interface changes were a great touch and improved my experience replaying one of my favourite games of all time.

#47: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings – PC – 20 pts – 2 votesThe Witcher -- violence, sex, and alchemy as part of your daily balanced breakfastdifficult listening hour: this is awesome -- had no idea the spirit of '97 was still alive. being able to switch between over-the-shoulder WoW mode and isometric planescape mode made me giddy. plus it is a noir! with a compelling shadowy morally tumultuous plot! a little lolzy with its dialogue sometimes, especially when it's being Adult (like, before the first hour of gameplay was up i'd had sex with a sorceress in fishnets who afterwards told me not to say goodbye because "you don't want to see a sorceress cry") but that's okay.

#47: Don't Take It Personally Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story – PC – 20 pts – 2 votesDownload it herefennel cartwright: Don't Take It Personally, Babe is the only game I have ever played with characters I give a lick about, which says a lot.

Don't Take It Personally, Babe mention is a good place to point out that Christine Love has a new game out, Analogue: A Hate Story which I think is better than either of the previous two. There's not much 'game' as such again but what there is is handled better than in Digital, and the story is really good with less of the ickiness of Don't Take It Personally.

Yes, there was a 4-way tie for #47, and now this is #42. obviously i messed something up! shocking! anyway, #42!

#42: El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron – 360 / PS3 – 22 pts – 2 votespolyphonic: The problem with this game is that it's a $20 game selling at full price. But it's a great $20 game. Are you a bad enough dude to find the seven fallen angels, and stop the great flood from destroying mankind?

jjjusten: Gorgeous, frustrating, somewhat flawed. Lets talk bad first - prettysure that no one understands what the hell is going on here, not thewriters, not the characters, and certainly not you. The fighting issemi-repetetive, and yeah there are platforming segments that arecripplingly unfair given the art style. but holy shit, what an artstyle. When game journos start yapping about the best looking game ofthis generation 6 years in they are normally just padding out areview, but man seriously, there isnt another game that looks likethis, its in rez territory where the first time you see it you cantbelieve how good it looks, but the difference here is that its a tourthrough schizophrenic art style madness, all of which are absolutelystunning. The gameplay is totally acceptable, but what will keep yougoing is the chance to just see what is around the corner, because allof it is mind-blowing.

#41: English Country Tune – iOS, PC – 23 pts – 1 votebamcquern: Increpare's magnum opus. You are a flop-flopping flat blue square in a cube universe. The game's beginning features several reimaginings of Sokoban. After a few levels, those that were mutants start to feel like new species. Travel to different nodes and interact with the local inhabitants. The Larvae are picky about gravity. You only push the Whales by their six beams of light. You visit a Japanese rock garden of shat green cubes. There is a level called Half-Sided where you are the level designer. The game comes with built-in myodesopsia.

I've waiting for a price drop to buy that, esp. b/c I have no shortage of games right now, but if it's going to hold out at $5 indefinitely then I'm gonna bite. it looks terrific & has been on my watch list since it came out more or less.

#39: Ys I & II Chronicles – PSP – 25 pts – 1 voteAlan N: I've been slowly playing through these and they are v. fun. definitely into the stripped-down feel of ys 1. (about 3 towns! just 5 pieces of armor!) basically a perfect diversion for a long plane ride.first two games def have too much backtracking tho.

#38: Resident Evil 4 HD – 360 / PS3 – 25 pts – 1 vote - 0.33 top game votesJordan: Still in the running for my favorite game of all-time, it will be at the top of the list for any year it comes out. The level design is still stunning, and I finally got to play 'Separate Ways', which was way more rich than I expected.

#37: Fallout New Vegas: Old World Blues DLC – 360 / PS3 / PC – 25 pts – 1 vote - 1 top game voteZora / Surfing at Work: Hoo, boy. I hadn't played this when the noms came out, because my play time has been really limited and I'd just started a new character when I downloaded Old World Blues. I hit level 15 on Sunday and went straight to the drive-in. Old World Blues is so good, I don't want it ever to end. I don't want to go back to the Sierra Madre, even, never mind chilly, serious old Skyrim. When you wake up in a strange place and realise someone's kidnapped you and made free with your essential organs (no, not like that, though there will be some of that sort of nonsense later), you know you're in for something a bit... different. Just how different becomes clear when you meet the floating brains with the TV screen faces, mad scientists all, but even better than that, they are *funny*. OK, so the devs have been playing Portal, and maybe watching a bit of Futurama; it's not the most original stuff in the world, but hey, this is B-movie SF played for laughs, who the hell cares? I haven't had this much fun with a game since LucasArts were top of the charts. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it, just go play it if you haven't already, even if you have to buy F:NV especially and grind through 15 levels to get there. Slip the slider down to Easy and have a blast.

ok i should buy that right away then. srsly considered voting for the dead mans hand (thats the one w/the sierra madre right?) because i thought it added a good load of difficulty but i dont tend to vote for add ons in these polls for no real good reason. but yeah that sounds completely amazing.

#36: Pokémon Black and White – DS – 27 pts – 3 votesoppet: It's pokemon innit...you either love it or you don't. This did everything I wanted from a new pokemon game.

jamescobo: I work like 80 hours a week these days and somehow I still managed to put over a day's worth of playclock into this god damned game. HOW. WHERE DOES THE TIME GO.

Salsa Shark: In most ways it's 'just another Pokemon game', but the changes to this generation warrant it having a spot on the list. Aside from having a fairly ridiculous storyline--which can't really be picked on because that's just how Pokemon games roll--there were only a couple of things that I found disappointing. First, the regular game isn't much of a challenge; gyms rarely provided a nail-biting battle and even the Pokemon League were only really difficult the second time around during the post-game content. For me, it's a minor quibble; there are other challenges, such as in post-game content. I also found Black City to be pretty dull, and without a Pokemon White cartridge there isn't much one can really do in this place. The White version, with a Pokemon-filled forest here instead of a city, has a bit of an edge over Black.

On the plus side, being able to reuse TMs is the best development in any Pokemon game ever, and having a completely new roster of Pokemon was refreshing, especially because this time around there's a better balance of types (for example, a lack of watery expanses means there isn't a disproportionate amount of dull water types). There are still zubats and ratatas in all but name, and the addition of Pokemon that look like ice cream cones and garbage bags is a bit odd, but there are enough quality Pokemon that making a team for the League isn't a struggle.

somehow I am a "gamer" & I don't even know what Pokemon is; I thought it was a card trading game? do they make RPGs about this? I dunno it could be fun! just wondering what the deal is & figure searching for "pokemon" isn't gonna help much

backtracking a bit- Don't Take It Personally was my disappointment of the year. Not sure if my rant against it is going to show up, but I complained bitterly about it when we first discussed it on ILG. Didn't know about Analogue: A Hate Story and I'll definitely check it out. The author of these is really interesting, even if I think DTIPB was a misfire in every conceivable way.

i've never played the ipad version, but played it several time irl. it's lots of fun! the real game takes quite a bit longer to play - an hour or two, depending on how long everyone's taking to strategize.

#24: Catherine – 360 / PS3 – 40 pts – 3 votesmethanietanner: A truly weird and thoughtful game that proves that rumors about the death of innovation in Japanese game design have been greatly exaggerated. The kind of game that everyone I described it to wanted to play it to simply see how it could actually exist in the real world and not just as the fever dream of an insane person.

Will M: I'm not a huge fan of the puzzling, but the little things with this game -- the characters, the cell phone stuff, the fucked up story... so totally great. I haven't gotten very far, yet, and I may start to like it more, or less, but so far I think it's worth voting for.

You also pick dialogue options for the text messages sent to the women, although it has precious little effect on the plot apart from the ending. The block pushing gets fairly complex and enjoyable though and those fucked up dream sections are definitely the best thing going for the game.

I want into Catherine really hoping to like it a lot, due to Persona 3 and 4 being two of my favourite games in recent years and it's uniqueness, but the gender essentialism and lack of development of the characters made it impossible to love. Yukiko and Chie were much more rounded and believable characters than Catherine or Katherine. Actually, even the flirty nurse whose name I've forgotten in P4 was probably a better developed character.

Jeff: I usually don't like these run forever type games, the controls often aren't responsive enough, but this one is well done.

Woof: It fills those 2 min gaps better than most other games & is repetitive-compelling but it's sort of charmless and there's that grubby 'buy fake coins with real coins' thing, so it's at the bottom of my ballot.

jamescobo: When I was in college I was required to take two science classes. The first one I took was The Science of Earthquakes, which was an awesome class. The other one was Astronomy, a class which (a) required real physics and (b) was apparently a class physics students used as an easy A. MvC3 is basically the video game equivalent of that class - I am firmly out of my element and under no pretenses about it. It's still a bunch of fun, which puts it in sharp contrast with Astronomy (which actually sucked) .

abanana: I did not actually play a minute of this. I am voting for it just forthe tournament streams and youtube videos. The comeback mechanics mayhave been too powerful, but the game is still very entertaining towatch.

#21: Saints Row: The Third – 360 / PS3 – 45 pts – 3 votes - 0.25 top game votesNhex: It's almost a cliche at this point to bring up the point that this series has become what GTA should have been. The missions and sheer fun this game throws at you! It could've been pretty easily gone too silly - and hell, it probably does at points - but even with all its sophomoric humor you can really see there was a lot of passion put into this game. For instance, the sound the dildo bats (err, The Penetrator) make when you clobber someone is perfect - you can really feel the weight and texture of that thing. Yeah and there's some other stuff like how they deliver a ton of things for you to do and how every single mission and activity in the game is coop-able, which makes everything better, but you knew that. Just keep this game away from Congress, for all our sakes...

jjjusten: Sometimes a game comes along that is so far removed from ideals of respectability and taste that it seems to operate on a different metric, and most of the time it fails (hey whats up naughty bear/duke nukem) but saints row has increasingly found a way to triumph in that arena. Now that GTA has decided to be a boring emo trainwreck painted in varying shades of grey, the world needed saints row the third more than ever, and we got more than we bargained for. You can not take this game seriously, and when you try, suddenly you think "oh shit, i did just beat that guy to death, but he was a magical neon encrusted anime nerd with a sword and the powers of the flash, and i did it with a baseball bat length purple dildo." Video game violence is best served super corny and bizarro, and the sooner people start remembering that, the better.

temple run: yeah, this was kind of your typical hot iphone game, like super awesome for a while but i haven't touched it in a long time

mvc3: juuust got knocked off my ballot, but this was really fun. i'm kinda with james, in that, i really enjoyed this but this is the first fighting game to really make me feel like, damn i am too old and too slow to even consider playing this at a decent level. seriously, even executing the standard magic series/bnb combo is like arrrrrrrgh fingers too slippy

also it deserves mentioning that the whole Ultimate re-release is kind of top shelf Capcom assholery. fortunately, i figured it was gonna happen so i didn't buy the original

yeah blazblue was the last fighting game i had the skill, patience and time to become 'competitive' at but mvc3 is flashy and stupid enough to just have a lot of fun fucking around w/. certainly is the first fighter since blazblue that ive wanted to play more than once

Actually the thing I really didn't like about GTAIV is that as the vehicles became more damaged they would start listing to one side or another. Proper GTA = you steal a car, you ride it like a maniac until it is 1 sec from exploding, you get a new car. None of this realistic damage nonsense.

I remember playing Destruction Derby for the first time, I think it was on the Saturn. I was impressed at how the damage affected the cars driving, I loved it. the best parts of the game were in the Bowl arena when only a few cars remained driving around all battered up barely able to turn.

in fact in gta one of my favourite cars is the 'already' beaten up, wing missing, rusty thing, that you can't even get fixed in a paynspray.

i'm pretty sure i voted for SR3. i keep trying to formulate a post in the video game racism thread where i explain why i didn't find its sexism/homophobia/racism upsetting, whereas i was bothered by deus ex human revolution, but i can't quite say it the way i want to. it's something about how it's so gleefully inane that it is hard to ascribe malice to it. it's not just that it insults everyone (which ppl have pointed out is often the refuge of the racist) but that the way it insults ppl is so guileless, so silly.

ftr, my fave part of the game is Genki. have u all seen tim + eric's thing?

i liked sr3 but i didn't love it. as manic as it is its still an uglier reflection of arrested gamers attitudes to women, and that gets icky after a while. and its just pretty cheap and shoddy wrt gameplay compared to gta4, esp compared to ballad of gay tony, which was just about perfect IMHO in terms of lunatic but grounded urban sandbox.